by Sam Thomas
Just before we reached Little Saint Thomas, we passed the Horned Bull. I looked up at the darkened windows, wondering which one might be Will’s. As we walked, Martha and I peppered Mrs. Evelyn with questions about Mrs. Ramsden. She was around thirty-five years old, and married to a blacksmith.
“How many children has she borne?” I asked. Knowing about Mrs. Ramsden’s earlier travails would make it easier for me to help her. Mrs. Evelyn’s answer brought me up short.
“This is her first,” she said.
“Her first travail?” Martha asked in astonishment.
It was not uncommon for a woman Mrs. Ramsden’s age to give birth, but quite strange that this would be her first child. A husband and wife who went so long without children were most likely barren, and that did not change with age.
“Aye,” Mrs. Evelyn said. “She was ever so eager for this one, too. It would be a terrible stroke if she lost him so close to her time.”
I murmured my agreement. It would be an awful end to an unlikely pregnancy.
“It is here,” Mrs. Evelyn said, leading us down a side street. When we reached the Ramsdens’ door I noticed a pair of wood signs above it. One was an anvil and hammer; the other was a cradle with GRACE RAMSDEN painted on it. We entered the house and climbed the stairs to Grace’s chamber. I said a prayer that God would protect Mrs. Ramsden and her little one and stepped through the door into the strangest travail I’d ever seen in my life.
* * *
In an instant I knew that something had gone terribly wrong, but not in an ordinary fashion. The woman I took to be Mrs. Ramsden squatted on a birthing stool next to her bed. Strangely enough she was not supported by her gossips, but sat by herself. More curious still was that she held a fire iron in both hands and waved it before her like a sword. Her gossips had retreated to a far corner of the room where they stared at her uneasily. Mrs. Ramsden moaned and lowered the fire iron as she was struck by a labor pang, but none of the women moved to help her.
“Have you all gone mad?” I demanded. Martha and I strode as one toward Mrs. Ramsden.
“You stay away,” she screamed, and swung the fire iron at us with such fury it nearly pulled her from the birthing stool. “Step closer and I’ll knock your brains out.”
Martha and I edged slowly toward the other women.
“Who is her midwife?” I asked. “And what is happening here?”
One of the matrons stepped forward. She was a small woman of perhaps fifty years. She seemed as delicate as a sparrow but had the sharp features of a hawk. But what I remembered long after our first meeting were her eyes. At first glance they might be taken for blue, but in truth they were a piercing gray, and they flashed with more energy and intelligence than you’d find in a hundred men.
“I am Katherine Chidley,” she said. “You must be Widow Hodgson.”
“Katherine Chidley,” I repeated, doing my best to hide my surprise. How was it that we had so quickly found Mr. Marlowe’s rebel? As I looked at her more closely, I was surprised that such a slight woman had frightened him so completely. I would later learn that his fears were not entirely misplaced, for she could be a determined enemy indeed.
“Aye,” I replied, gritting my teeth at my new title. “And this is my deputy, Martha Hawkins. What is happening here?”
Mrs. Chidley drew Martha and me into the hall before she spoke. “It is the strangest thing. Mrs. Ramsden has been in travail for hours but will have no help from me or any of her gossips. You saw what happens if we try. She said she’s delivered many a woman, and she can deliver herself as well.”
“Is she mad?” I asked the question in all seriousness, for such a decision seemed more appropriate for a lunatic than an experienced midwife.
“If so, she’s hid it well before tonight,” Katherine replied. She started to say more, but a gut-wrenching scream from within the chamber cut her off. We hurried back inside to find Mrs. Ramsden sitting on the floor weeping as if the world had come to an end.
“My baby, my baby,” she whispered. She held a tiny gray creature in her arms; it could only be her stillborn child. Tears came to my eyes as I thought of the weeks and months of mourning that lay before her. Katherine Chidley and I stepped forward at the same time to take Mrs. Ramsden in our arms. It would be poor comfort, but at moments such as this, there was nothing more we could do.
To my shock, Mrs. Ramsden snatched up the fire iron, and once again swung it at my head, coming within inches of splitting my skull at one blow. “You will not have him away from me,” she shouted. “I will hold him a bit longer, and if you try to take him I’ll see you dead and buried.”
Mrs. Chidley and I stumbled backward and out of the fire iron’s reach and looked to each other. We simultaneously shook our heads in wonder. Neither of us had seen anything like this.
We stood for a time staring at the scene before us. Mrs. Ramsden had put down the fire iron, turned her back on us, and now cradled the child. The gossips were utterly terrified, of course, and lined the walls wanting to stay as far from Mrs. Ramsden as possible. It was a sad and strange scene, but the more I considered it, the more curious it became. I beckoned for Martha.
“I must speak with Mrs. Chidley,” I murmured in her ear. “But I dare not leave Mrs. Ramsden alone with the gossips. Mind her well. You must not allow her to leave, especially with the child. If she tries, stop her at any cost and call for us. We will not go far.”
Martha nodded, her eyes hard as stones. If Mrs. Ramsden tried to flee, she’d have a battle on her hands.
“Good,” I said. I cast my eyes around the room and spied a bottle of sack that the gossips had brought. Understandably, they’d not yet opened it. I took it and two glasses and gestured to Mrs. Chidley. “Mrs. Chidley, might we talk?”
She nodded and followed me out of the chamber and into the Ramsdens’ kitchen. A fire burned on the hearth, heating water to wash a child that now lay dead. We sat at the table and I poured two glasses of wine.
“That was passing strange,” I said.
“Aye,” she replied. “I’ve been a midwife near twenty years, and I’ve never seen stranger.”
“And not just Mrs. Ramsden’s madness, though that was strange enough.”
“No,” Mrs. Chidley replied. “It was a very short travail. How long were we gone from the room?”
“Not more than a few minutes,” I said. “And this was her first child?”
“So she says.”
“It was curious that she kept her skirts on the entire time,” I said. “And that they remained dry throughout the birth.”
“Nor were there any signs of the birth on the floor or on the birthing stool.” Mrs. Chidley spoke with a heaviness that perfectly mirrored my own sorrow at what we had discovered.
“It was also odd that that the child had no birth string,” I said. “And there was no afterbirth, at least not yet.”
“I warrant we could wait all night and into the morning, and there still would be no afterbirth,” she replied.
I nodded and we sat in silence as we finished our wine. Neither of us wanted to complete the circle we’d begun to draw, for it looked rather too much like a noose that would soon find its way around Mrs. Ramsden’s neck.
“That is not her child,” Mrs. Chidley said at last.
“No,” I said. “But it is someone’s child. And it is dead, perhaps at her hands.”
“Ah, Christ,” she moaned as she pushed back her chair. “I do not want to do this.”
“I’ll help you,” I said. “I’ve done similar work, and I know that it’s best done with friends.”
“I’d welcome it, Mrs. Hodgson.”
“Bridget,” I replied. “If we’re going to be friends, you must call me Bridget.”
“Then I am Katherine,” she said. “Now let us put an end to this bloody business.”
Chapter 7
As we neared Mrs. Ramsden’s chamber we heard her shouting once again, and this time Martha answered her. Katherine and
I exchanged a glance and threw open the door to find Martha and Mrs. Ramsden engaged in a gruesome wrestling match, as Mrs. Ramsden tried to flee with the child and Martha tried to keep her from doing so.
“I will bury my child and none will stop me,” Mrs. Ramsden cried.
Katherine and I crossed the room, seized Mrs. Ramsden by the arms, and—despite her loud and increasingly obscene protests—dragged her to the bed. She held the child’s body to her breast the entire time.
“This is not your child, Grace Ramsden,” Katherine declared. “And you must consider me and Mrs. Hodgson to be the finest fools in England if you thought we would be taken in by such a ruse.”
The gossips cried out in surprise at this accusation, but a smile darted across Martha’s lips. She had come to the same conclusion. In the tumult that followed all the women started to talk at once, and each vied for a closer look at the child in Mrs. Ramsden’s arms. This would not be a birth soon forgotten, and none of the gossips wanted to be left without some news of her own.
“Of course it’s mine,” Mrs. Ramsden cried, silencing the crowd. “How could it be otherwise?”
“When did you cut the navel string?” Katherine asked. “And where is the afterbirth?”
“And why is he so clean?” I asked. “You did not wash him—the water is still in the kitchen, and the child has none of the stuff and matter of birth upon him.”
At this the women began to chatter once again, and one slipped out of the room. Soon the entire Cheap would have some account of what had happened.
“Give me the child, Grace,” Katherine said. Her voice barely rose above a whisper, but I could hear the steel behind it.
When Mrs. Ramsden did not move, Martha and I stepped forward and held her arms while Katherine prized the child from her grasp. After a moment Mrs. Ramsden surrendered to the inevitable and released the infant. While Martha watched Mrs. Ramsden in case she tried to reclaim the child, Katherine and I stepped away from the bed to examine the corpse.
He was a baby boy, and while we could not judge how long he had been dead, his skin was cold and dry. In no wise could he have been born only a few minutes before.
“You never were pregnant, Grace,” Katherine said. “Where did you get the child? You must tell us.”
A deathly quiet settled over the room as we waited for her answer. Had she stolen a young mother’s child and murdered it herself? None of the gossips had heard of an infant missing from anywhere in the neighborhood, but the Cheap was one small corner of London. If she had taken the child from one of the more distant parishes, they might not have heard the news. Or had she happened upon a newly dead child, and in a moment of madness taken it for her own? It was unlikely, but every explanation seemed more fantastical than the last.
Katherine continued to question Mrs. Ramsden, by turns threatening, cajoling, and begging her to tell the truth. But she never said a word. Before long, the room began to fill with other women from the neighborhood, and finally the constable arrived. As soon as he saw Katherine, he waved her over. She brought me along and introduced me as Widow Hodgson. I nearly corrected her (Lady Hodgson), but held my tongue. It would be some time before I became accustomed to my new name.
“Have you examined her body?” the constable asked.
“Not yet,” Katherine replied. “We will not find anything of use. We know it is not her child.”
“The Justice will want to know that you looked,” he replied. “I’ll wait outside while you do that, and then I’ll have to take her to Newgate.”
Katherine nodded and the constable stepped out of the room. To my relief, Grace Ramsden offered no resistance when we laid her back on the bed and raised her skirts. Of course we found no signs of a pregnancy or birth, and she certainly had not delivered a child that day. We summoned the constable and informed him of our findings, and he led Mrs. Ramsden out of the room. Two of the gossips went in search of the parish curate, while two others took the child to St. Thomas Church for burial. Slowly the remaining gossips drifted away as well, until only Katherine, Martha, and I were left.
“How long have you known her?” I asked Katherine. “Why would she do such a strange thing?”
Katherine sighed heavily. “We’ve worked together as midwives for years. She came to me when her husband couldn’t get her with child. I tried to help, but to no good effect. Either she is barren or her husband is.”
“A barren midwife?” I asked. There were no laws against such a thing, of course, but I knew that mothers would shy away from a midwife who could not have children of her own.
“Aye,” Katherine said. “She was afraid that her barrenness might drive mothers to other grace-wives, but I never thought she would resort to such strange trickery.”
Martha started at Katherine in astonishment. “You mean this was a ruse to win over the neighborhood women? Why would she take such a risk?”
“Look around you,” Katherine said. We did, and only now noticed the decayed condition of the Ramsdens’ small chamber. The furnishings were ill made and held together with little more than prayers. The bedclothes had been worn so thin in some places that the straw broke through. I then recalled how meager were the offerings in the kitchen. Despite Grace’s midwifery and her husband’s work as a blacksmith, the Ramsdens were as poor as could be.
“Her husband is notoriously unskilled at his trade, and he’s prone to drunkenness,” Katherine explained. “What little money he makes he pours down his gullet, and if he gets his hands on her money it meets the same fate. If she could no longer work as a midwife, they would fall onto parish charity and then into true poverty. She needed to be a midwife to survive.”
“What will happen to her?” Martha asked. We had seen how unpredictable the courts could be in York, and we had no idea what to expect from London’s.
“God knows,” Katherine replied. “It will depend on what they think she’s done, and what she says when they question her.”
“Could she have murdered the child?” Martha asked. We all knew the fate that awaited infanticides.
“I cannot believe it,” Katherine replied. “She has been a midwife for years. She cannot have become such a monster. As strange as it is, she must have somehow procured a child’s corpse.”
Katherine, Martha, and I walked together back toward Watling Street. By now the city had come to life, and the streets were filled with citizens going about their business. It seemed strange that the stuff of every day life went on for so many, while Grace Ramsden now sat in a stinking prison.
“You should put up a sign,” Katherine said when we reached our door. “We’ve mothers aplenty, so a capable midwife is a welcome neighbor.”
“If there is any word about Mrs. Ramsden, please let us know,” I replied.
“I will.”
There seemed much more to say, but we all were far too tired. Katherine embraced Martha and me as if we were long-time gossips, and we parted ways.
* * *
Martha and I awoke far earlier than we would have liked to the noise of the city below our window. It began with two men shouting, but it soon sounded like a riot. When it became clear the dispute would not soon end, we went to the window to see what the matter was. Below us Martha and I saw that two carters traveling opposite directions had turned on to our street at the same time. There was not enough room for them to pass each other and neither wished to give way, so they now busied themselves hurling oaths at one another. Of course the longer they shouted, the more people backed up behind them, and soon it was as if the civil wars had been reborn before our eyes, as those traveling west battled those going east and no man seemed prepared to talk rather than shout.
“I suppose we should start the day,” Martha said. “We’ll not be getting back to sleep.”
“It seems not,” I replied. “If you go for water, I’ll start the sweeping.”
With only two rooms and the both of us putting our hands to the work, cleaning took no time at all, and then the day l
ay before us begging to be filled—but with what? We had no friends save Katherine and no mothers to visit.
“So this is our new life,” I said with a laugh. “A poor widow and her spinster servant, just passing our days in the Cheap.”
“Last night was not so ordinary,” Martha replied. “Do you think Katherine was right, that we could resume our business here?”
“You mean make ourselves midwives, not just in passing but as a profession?” I thought of Elizabeth, left behind in Pontrilas while Martha and I sought our fortunes in London. “I hope we won’t be here long enough for that.”
“But if we are to be spies, we must act as if we will be. And who knows what the future will bring?”
“Very well,” I said. “If we are to be midwives once again, your first duty as my deputy is to have a sign made. That can be your task for this morning.”
Martha brightened at the prospect and dashed out in search of a sign-maker.
Once I was alone, my mind returned to Elizabeth. It was too soon to hope for a letter from Pontrilas, but I could always send another. I wrote a letter making clear the drudgery of life in the city. I did not think I would convince her.
By the time I finished, Martha had returned from the sign-maker and, after studying Colonel Reynolds’s map for a time, we went in search of the Horned Bull. To my pleasure, we found it with only two wrong turns, but we were both disappointed to discover that Will and Colonel Reynolds had left for the day. I left my letter to Elizabeth with the innkeeper and we began the trip back to the Cheap.
“How does Will seem to you?” Martha asked as we walked. Hope and fear were woven into her every word.
“Serious,” I said. “He’s long been a melancholy lad, thanks to his crippled leg. But he does not seem as angry as he once did.” I paused for a moment. “But that is not what you mean.”